Puerh with High Energy

brandon wrote:Might not be perfect, hard to pinpoint exactly because the liberalization was gradual and applied unevenly. For example, three private investors were allowed to purchase and reopen the then defunct Kunming before Menghai and XG went private. And a lot of things kept coming in zhongcha wrappers until much later.

Ok that makes a lot of sense considering I've had multiple 7542's that were claimed to span from 1996-2002 and all in between (all with Zhongcha wrappers) so I'm sure it's something we can't pinpoint. B, do you agree with the decline in quality of either of these recipes concurrent with the "approximate" dates of the liberalization based on your experience?

Haha, no. The decline in quality is traceable to what people call the boom/bubble. 2003-2004 for a rough start, 2007 peak and decline. The funny thing about this bubble is, the same time marginal producers and 'investors' were exiting, real demand and prices for gushu were exploding. Pre-2004 Dayi prices are still going up, too. So there is no going back for us little guys.

I don't know about 2012, but the wrappers that TIM showed were definitely used by Tai Lian brand in 2004 and 2005, and as with many Tai Lian products, no region were ever really specified. The design I think commemorates the Tea Horse Caravan (if not, then an ethnic minority group). The wrappers aren't exactly alike, the early ones had a solid color bar with characters on it underneath the face.

Ok that makes a lot of sense considering I've had multiple 7542's that were claimed to span from 1996-2002 and all in between (all with Zhongcha wrappers) so I'm sure it's something we can't pinpoint. B, do you agree with the decline in quality of either of these recipes concurrent with the "approximate" dates of the liberalization based on your experience?

One thing you can pinpoint with certainty is the boom in the Zhongcha Wrapper Printing Industry in the last decade

I think the recipe has declined, but more than that, there is so much fake riff-raff in the "1996-2002 zhongcha wrapped 7542" genre that it takes a bit of doing to even make comparisons.

Marshaln's ('03?) 7542 that I tried recently was good, and an argument against big decline. But, I have had many terrible zhongcha wrapped 7542 teas from that era for every one winner, some fake and some real but poorly stored.